Gov. Jan Brewer forcefully declared that her proposal to expand the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to hundreds of thousands of new patients is a pro-life plan. As a pro-life governor, she said, she will not sit idly by while people suffer.
Since then, opponents of her plan have taken up the pro-life mantle in the Legislature.

Beth Otterstein, a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood Arizona’s clinic here, says patients sometimes break down and cry when they hear the news: If they want abortions, they now have to travel to Phoenix for a 15-minute consultation with a doctor and then stay overnight to have the procedure. It’s an expense that some can’t afford, and no other facility in the area provides abortions.

Two new laws regulating abortion discriminate against women who want to use the abortion pill and physician assistants and nurses who dispense it, Planned Parenthood alleged Wednesday in court filings that seek to keep the new measures from taking effect.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has granted a preliminary injunction against new state laws that place restrictions on abortion. Although the decision has been embraced by state Democrats, the Republican co-sponsor of both bills said it's another case of courts infringing on the territory of the Legislature.